Notes on Reality
by Rosie Cotton
Summary: A different take on the second Triwizard Challenge. Harry ponders who he really wants to find at the bottom of the lake. Hints of Harry/Draco, Harry/Ron, and Harry/Cedric, which means SLASH.


Author's Note: This is my first attempt at HP slash, or really at M/M slash in general. Constructive criticism is VERY welcomed. =)

The water was closing in above his head. Pale greenish light surrounded him, murky bits of unknown substances floating about him. He could breathe perfectly and the pressure didn't bother him; rather the lower he got, the better he felt.

But he was still terrified.

He didn't know what to expect at the bottom of the lake. He wanted to believe it would be his Firebolt or his Invisibility Cloak or something mundane and unembarrassing like that, but somehow he knew he couldn't count on it. Painful embarrassment seemed to be a constant in his life. Especially recently.

He tried to concentrate on finding his bearings, always sloping down, down, down. Strange noises echoed in his waterlogged ears, like half-formed words slipping away after a dream. The strange noises of an underwater world he knew absolutely nothing about. He wondered how much time was left.

Terrified.

A small silvery fish swam lazily past him. He forced his shaking muscles to move faster, farther down. He felt unsettled by his apparent weightlessness, and the gillyweed did nothing to avert the slimy nastiness of the water. A tendril of algae brushed his thigh for the umpteenth time, and had he been capable, he would have sighed.

It was dark down here and visibility was low, and it was becoming harder and harder to focus on the task and not the terror.

He wasn't afraid of the water. He had been at first, but he'd gotten over that slowly. He was afraid of what he'd find under it...or rather, of who.

Red-haired and freckled, kind and clumsy, hilarious and loyal in his own bizarre way. Harry wanted it to be Ron. He needed it to be Ron because if it wasn't he was completely and totally screwed. Because Ron at least made sense. Safe, easy, available Ron. Everyone knew they hung about together, that they were best mates. The best of best mates. The things everyone didn't know were irrelevant. It was acceptable for Ron to be waiting for Harry to rescue him. And, of course, that's what Ron expected.

What no one but a nagging paranoia at the back of Harry's mind suspected was who else might be down there. Who might be scoffing at the general unhygenity of the lake and mocking merpeople for their bad fashion sense. Or, worse, lying unconscious like they probably all were, dead eyes half-open to the water, blond hair fanned out in the current, waiting. Waiting to be rescued. Then, maybe then he'd give Harry a second glance. Maybe he'd be grateful enough to realise that it was he whom Harry had wanted all along.

Harry shook his head, sending a stream of ripples out all around him and blurring his vision for a second or two. No, no use thinking like that. It was Ron, it would be Ron, had to be Ron...

_Please, be Ron_.

Not Draco. God, not Draco. He was perfect. His careful stride, his knowing smirk, that razor-edged wit that Harry never let himself laugh at. Draco was smarmy and dangerous and forbidden and delicious. If it was Draco Harry would quite possibly let himself drown.

He had never admitted to himself just how much he wanted him until how. How he closed his eyes with Ron and pictured someone impossible. But now he was forced to entertain the notion that maybe it had been Draco all along.

But he loved Ron too. Ron was his mate. If things were different, he would close his eyes and picture Ron. And Draco was a prat, not to mention a complete non-option. So Harry needed to just stop thinking about him (and his smooth skin and his perfect smile and _fuck_!) and concentrate on Ron and then maybe he'd not have to watch his life and his reputation slipping away from him.

He caught a glimpse of something large and dark, and made for it as fast as he could. As he got closer, bodies coalesced, lashed together and floating, guarded by cruel-eyed beings who in no way resembled the mermaid myths of Muggle childhood. He could see no faces, and it still terrified him. He swam closer, closer--

Ron's half-dead face jumped at him from between Hermione and a blond girl who looked too much like Fleur to be coincidence.

His whole body deflated, and until that moment he hadn't begun to realise how much he wanted it to be Draco. But that was neither here nor there, and Harry began to swim forward towards the ropes that would release him.

A motion caught the corner of his eye, and he turned--and Cedric swam towards him, face encased in some sort of bubble which magnified perfectly the look of shock on Cedric's face. It reminded Harry of something he didn't really want to think about. The older boy stared at him, floating gently, not moving a muscle. With a sudden jolt, Harry realised what Cedric had been expecting.

"Harry," his lips said soundlessly. "I..."

Then his eyes caught something else, to Harry's right, and the brunet turned with him to look at Cho.

When Harry looked back Cedric was already swimming past him, shoulders tense. He said nothing more. Neither of them did. And Harry knew that Cedric knew that Harry knew, and they would never be able to be friends again.

Once they were all warm and dry and safe, Harry hugged Ron tightly and tuned out Cedric at the corner of his vision and tried not to think about it. No one ever seemed to pick up the implications of Harry's choice; they were best mates. No one, that is, except Hermione. She cornered them one day and asked quite plainly if they were shagging, and it was nigh impossible to lie to that perfectly matter-of-fact kind of honesty. When they stammered and hemmed and eventually mumbled an assent, she shrugged and said "Thought so."

He figured it out eventually, after turning it over in his mind until the edges of his sanity were beginning to feel a bit frayed. It wasn't who you'd miss most that you'd find. It couldn't have been. Whoever had made this decision, whether the merpeople or the Triwizard judges or even Dumbledore, they couldn't read your mind. Not even in the wizarding world was that possible. They could only read your actions. And Harry's actions and Cedric's led who-the-fuck-ever to believe exactly what everyone expected. What was normal and safe, which were rarely the same as what was true and real.

Harry eventually got over Draco, and Ron too. Schoolboy fantasies rarely last beyond adolescence. Ron started chasing Hermione in sixth year, which always felt a bit incestuous to Harry, but he really had no business objecting considering his history.

He never did quite get over Cedric, but by the time he realised that it was far beyond too late.


End file.
